Extreme Views

July 14, 2002

I am always fascinated to see the lengths to which various extremist
groups will go to defend their narrow view of the world, even when it
is against their own best interests. One example is the huge wildfires
currently raging through the western portion of the United States. The
US Forestry Service has been trying for years to remove the dead vegetation
fueling these fires. Guess what? Wacko environmental groups have tied
them up with hundreds of lawsuits. The result? The very forests the tree-huggers
say they want to protect are now being ravaged as a direct result of these
lawsuits.

The abortion lobby acts with the same lack of common sense. (Yes, they
have highly-paid lobbyists. After all abortion is a multi-million dollar
business.) The pro-death people (they prefer to be called pro-choice,
but lets call them what they really are) refuse to give an
inch in their zeal to kill unborn children. Even when defending the absolutely
indefensible, partial-birth abortion, they cling tenaciously to the womans
right to choose." According to them, a doctor must be allowed to
murder a baby if any part of his or her body is still inside the mother.
Many healthy babies who have already drawn their first breaths have been
slaughtered in this way. (For a more detailed treatment of this subject,
read What
A Difference A Minute Makes.)

On September 11, 2001, we all saw the results of the anti-gun lobbys
efforts to disarm America. These extremists lobbied successfully to disarm
commercial airline pilots. If their attempt had failed, I doubt seriously
that the four airliners hijacked that day would have been taken over by
Islamic terrorists. You see, not so long ago, it was very common for airline
pilots to carry handguns in the cockpit. Ill bet you didnt
know that. Our liberal news media made sure you didnt hear what
I am about to tell you.

Until late in 1987, commercial pilots had carried small arms as a matter
of course on their aircraft. There was never a problem. Most airline pilots
receive their flight training in our armed forces, so they are well-trained
in the safe use of firearms. But in 1987, a suicidal passenger broke into
the cockpit of an airliner, killed the pilots and crashed the airplane.
Following that incident, something happened that was even more insane
than the actions of that murderer. The Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) took exactly the opposite action of what any sensible citizen would
have done. They disarmed the pilots, and made them go through metal detectors
before boarding their planes! Following that idiotic decision, there was
absolutely no question that eventually terrorists would accept the gift
of defenseless planes and crash one.

In July of 2001, intelligence agencies received dozens of reports that
al-Qaeda terrorists would soon attack an airliner. The FAAs reaction?
They immediately proceeded to remove an obscure rule that no airline was
taking advantage of, which allowed individual airlines to arm their pilots.
They completed the process of removing the only legal way for pilots to
defend the passengers in their care in September, 2001 - just a week before
the Attacks on America.

How ironic that the anti-gun extremists greatest victory came just
days before the folly of their position became so terribly evident.

On July 12, 2002, I watched Capt. Dennis Miller, the Vice-president of
the Airline Pilots Association, ably defend the position of the
vast majority of airline pilots on FOX News Live. He stated that 73% of
airline pilots want to carry firearms to defend their aircraft. His associations
position is that the 27% who do not wish to be armed would not be given
the required training. Virtually every other pilots association
agrees with this position, including the Airline Pilotsí Security Alliance
(APSA), the Allied Pilotsí Association (APA), the Coalition of Airline
Pilotsí Associations (CAPA), the Air Line Pilotsí Association (ALPA) and
the Independent Pilotsí Association (IPA).

The FBI agreed. That agency produced its Cockpit Protection Program (CPP)
and the Special Operations and Research (SOAR) report in December, 2001.
Both studies strongly recommended arming pilots. The SOAR report went
further, stating unequivocally that Tasers and Stun Guns should not be
relied upon to defend the cockpit of an airliner.

The president agreed. On November 19, 2001, President Bush signed into
law the Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA), making it possible
once again for pilots to be armed. However, anti-Second Amendment forces
had called in political favors and diluted the Act so that this could
only go into effect if the FAA and the airlines approved.

The vast majority of the public, as poll after poll proved, agreed. Americans,
even liberals, are capable of making common sense decisions where their
safety is concerned. There must have been a lot of liberals who answered
with a resounding Yes! to all those polls about arming pilots,
or we wouldnt have seen such high poll numbers. After all, as they
say, a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Our whole country,
liberals and conservatives alike, was mugged by the terrorists. And liberals
and conservatives agreed that it was important for pilots to be able to
defend passengers, since the government was unwilling or unable to do
so.

Guess who disagreed? Thats right, the FAA. You have to wonder who
in that agency is receiving bribes from the anti-gun lobby. That is the
only possibility that makes any sense, when almost everyone in the nation
overwhelming favors a sensible program of arming pilots that could save
tens of thousands of lives.

Well, Congress is going to have to make the difference, since the FAA
administrators show no signs of taking their heads out of the sand. The
House voted just last week to take the matter out of the hands of these
bumbling bureaucrats. Interestingly, 73% of the Representatives voted
in favor of the bill, exactly the same as the number of pilots who favor
defensive weapons in the cockpit.

Now it is up to the Senate to complete the return to common sense. You
can do your part to encourage your Senators to do the right thing. Go
to our website, ConservativeTruth.org
and look toward the bottom of the left column for the Contact Congress
box. Enter your zip code and follow the instructions.

The program proposed by the FBI and the airline pilots makes eminent
good sense. It is completely voluntary and includes screening and training
by a federal agency. Since over 65% of airline pilots are ex-military
officers, training should be simple. Firearms would be used only as a
last resort, the final line of defense of the cockpit when terrorists
have broken through the cockpit door. Aviation and firearms experts should
select specific firearms and ammunition.

There are a few strident voices that say airline pilots cannot be trusted
with firearms. Friends, we trust our lives to these well-trained men and
women every time we board an airliner. Certainly there are risks involved
with the use of firearms on any aircraft. But which would you rather face?
The small risk that a stray bullet might hit a vital component of the
aircraft? Or the certainty that a fighter pilot will be ordered to shoot
down the aircraft you are on if it is taken over by terrorists?

Hereís an irony for you. Many airline pilots serve as military reserve
pilots. There is a very real possibility that someday an airline pilot
whom the FAA would not trust to defend his cockpit with a safe handgun
may be flying a fighter escorting an airliner that has been taken over
by Arab terrorists. He may be ordered to shoot down a plane piloted by
a fellow reservist to save thousands of people on the ground. We can trust
these pilots with missiles, but not with a handgun? It is ludicrous, even
for the anti-gun fanatics, not to see this for what it is: lunacy.